List of countries by past and projected future population

This assumes that countries stay constant in the unforeseeable future, and does not take into account possible border changes.

All the figures shown here have been sourced from the International Database (IDB) Division of the United States Census Bureau.

Every individual value has been rounded to the nearest thousand, to assure data coherence, particularly when adding up (sub)totals.

Although data from specific statistical offices may be more accurate, the information provided here has the advantage of being homogeneous.

Population estimates, as long as they are based on recent censuses, can be more easily projected into the near future than many macroeconomic indicators, such as GDP, which are much more sensitive to political and/or economic crises.

This means that demographic estimates for the next five (or even ten) years can be more accurate than the projected evolution of GDP over the same time period (which may also be distorted by inflation).

On the other hand, some other countries, like the small Asian state of Bhutan, have only recently had a thorough census for the first time: In Bhutan's case in particular, before its national 2005 population survey,[2][3][4] the IDB estimated its population at over 2 million; this was drastically reduced when the new census results proved to be 672,000.

That country was reported by the IDB to have an inflated population of some 242 million by mid-2005, because it had not still processed the final results of the 2000 Indonesian census.

[5][6][7][8] There was a similar discrepancy with the relatively recent Ethiopian 2007 census,[9][10] which gave a preliminary result of "only" 73,918,505 inhabitants.

For instance, the 2002 census in that Oceanian island, which gave a final population of 9,561[11] shows that IDB estimates can be significantly off.

The retrospective figures use the present-day names and world political division: for example, the table gives data for each of the 15 republics of the former Soviet Union, as if they had already been independent in 1950.

The opposite is the case for Germany, which had been divided since the end of the Second World War but was reunified on October 3, 1990.

To the right of each year column (except for the initial 1950 one), a percentage figure is shown, which gives the average annual growth for the previous five-year period.

Below is a list of countries and regions of the world with their projected population, as estimated by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, as of July 11, 2022.